Pretender's Game

by Louise Clark

  Thea had begun to believe that nothing could be done to save James when she received a note suggesting that she should visit St. Giles Cathedral on High Street on a certain day at the hour of one in the afternoon. She read the note several times, and with each reading she remained perplexed. The paper was unsigned and the wafer sealing it had no stamp identifying the sender. Why, she wondered, would someone send her such a communication?

  Her curiosity thoroughly roused, she decided she would stop in at the church, which was near the Tolbooth prison, after she had delivered her basket of food to James. No one would be surprised that she took a moment to seek solace after visiting the prison.

  On the appointed day she found a place near the front of the church, while she had the maid who accompanied her settle further back. The pews were empty now, but she remembered the day when she had stood at the altar and before a huge crowd of friends and well-wishers, made her wedding vows to James MacLonan. She closed her eyes as she knelt, fighting the fear that the happiness she had found with James would be short-lived, then prayed for her husband’s safety. After a time the hallowed quiet of the church renewed her strength. Once again she could believe that there was hope for James. There was always hope. She would have faith in that.

  She was so deeply immersed in her thoughts that the sound of a rough male whisper, directly behind her, made her jump.

  “We should not be seen together, Mrs. MacLonan!”

  “Lord Staverton! I thought you had gone to London.”

  “That is exactly what I hoped people would think.”

  “Then you never left Edinburgh?”

  “No.”

  “What have you been doing then?” She shifted her body and moved her head so she could see behind her.

  “Don’t do that! It is very possible that you are being watched. I am sure I was before I pretended to leave Edinburgh. I don’t want Harris to know I’ve contacted you.”

  “Why?”

  “Before I answer that, tell me what has happened since I supposedly left?”

  “Nothing, and everything. My father has not yet arrived from London. Mr. Ramsey and Grant have had no luck in persuading anyone in the government that James should be sent before a magistrate. They are all outraged, of course, but they have been told that the Pretender is loose and may be on his way to Scotland, so they are also terrified that he may try to raise the Highlands again. They will not make a move against Colonel Harris.”

  “Damned Whigs,” Staverton muttered.

  Footsteps sounded nearby, echoing upward into the vast, vaulted ceiling. Staverton’s voice halted abruptly.

  When the sound faded minutes later, Thea’s heart was pounding and her throat had dried from sheer terror. Staverton’s aura of secrecy and his contention that she was being spied upon brought her once again into her husband’s world of rebellion and alienation. It was frightening. It was also exhausting. She doubted she would be able to live in it for very long.

  After the danger had passed, Staverton’s gruff whisper brought her attention back to him. “Let me quickly explain what it is I need of you! I wish to be gone from this place.”

  Thea nodded. Then, when Staverton did not speak, she whispered, “I am willing to listen, Lord Staverton.”

  “I have been able to arrange passage for James on a ship to France. I want to free him from the Tolbooth, but to do that I need your help.”

  Thea froze. “Escape?”

  “Yes!” Staverton hissed. “I’d expected a little more enthusiasm from you, Mrs. MacLonan.”

  Thea thought of the anguish James would feel, separated from his beloved hills. “My husband would hate to live in exile.”

  “Better to live in exile than be dead because of a mad Prince and a foolish, revenge-filled government!”

  Thea stared at the altar and the cross upon it. Should she help Staverton lead James back into a life of exile, or should she trust in the laws and political system of England to free her husband? Once she would have chosen without wasting a moment in thought. Now she could not decide.

  Staverton’s urgent voice forced the issue. “James is lodged in the Tolbooth prison, Mrs. MacLonan. The place is a fortress! I cannot free him without your help!”

  “I understand, for I have been going there every day. There are guards at the gate, which is kept locked from the inside. What could I do?”

  “I need to know details of the inside of the prison. How many guards there are, where James is being kept, if there is some weakness I can use to break him free. I cannot get in—I know, for I have already tried. But you can, Mrs. MacLonan, you can.”

  Thea thought about the prison and shivered. The mere thought of going inside it filled her with a heart-stopping panic. But James was there. He had no choice but to endure the horror of the Tolbooth prison. She thought about seeing him, soon, and a deep, comforting peace filled her. “When?”

  “Tomorrow, when next you take James your basket of food, the guard will open the gate for you. Follow him. He will take you to James.”

  “Very well.”

  “And remember, notice everything!”

  Thea nodded. “I will.” She waited for more, but there was only silence. She risked a quick look around, but saw no one. The viscount had gone.

  *

  The Tolbooth was a large, looming structure of cold gray granite, imposing, grim, and ominous. In lamentably few places the thick stone walls were shot with tiny slits that must serve as windows.

  As Thea stepped up to the massive gates, she shivered with nerves and a very real fear. Then she thought of James inside this enormous pile of stone, locked away from fresh air and the sun’s light. The knowledge infuriated her and helped her to step quickly through the small inset door in the thick wooden gates that opened with a shriek of protest. Behind her, she heard her maid whimper. Thea turned and said coolly, “You may stay here, or you may accompany me. Do as you please.”

  The turnkey who opened the gate was a mean little man, with thick, wet lips, a large nose, and several days growth of beard. From the stench that emanated from him, it seemed that he evidently considered washing to be something others did. Small black eyes bored into Thea, then flicked over to her maid, a pretty girl who, until this point had been happy to be elevated to the position of personal maid. A lascivious leer split his cheeks. “She stays with you, lassie. Are you ready?”

  His expression made Thea tremble deep in her bones, but she refused to allow her fears to show, hiding them behind a facade of cool hauteur.

  “You will take me to my husband so that I can give him my basket of food myself,” she said, looking down her nose at the warder.

  He grinned at her, showing broken, blackened teeth. “Aye. It’s been arranged. Come this way then lassie, and mind your step. This place ain’t kept as clean as the likes of you expects.”

  The maid whispered urgently, “Is this really necessary, lady? I mean, the master must be getting his food, I’m sure he is.”

  “I wish to be certain.”

  “This be madness,” the maid muttered, and pulled the hood of her cloak up around her head.

  Thea lifted her head boldly, despite the atmosphere of decay and death that permeated the prison. Madness perhaps, but if so it was caused by Colonel Harris and the Pretender.

  The only light in the closed hallway came from the oil lantern their guide held. It cast huge, lurking shadows on the dark stone walls. A disgusting stench filled the place, and as they went by an open refuse pit, Thea realized that the drains must no longer function.

  They passed the common cells where pickpockets and sneak thieves were imprisoned with unfortunates whose only crime was indebtedness, then progressed toward the east wing, where the turnkey said James was being lodged. Thea forced thoughts of her own physical discomfort to the back of her mind as she concentrated on noting the route the warder was taking and looking for any possible flaws in the security that could be used to abet an escape.

  How can
James break free of this place? she thought desperately. The walls were thick blocks of stone with the only route in or out through this narrow corridor. The turnkey would have to be bribed, but would he risk the censure that would surely fall on him if it was discovered he had aided a prisoner to escape? Somehow, the prospect of this noisome little man as a fellow conspirator did not inspire Thea with confidence.

  At length they arrived in the east wing. There were only three cells, one on top of the other. The stench intensified, and Thea’s heart twisted as she imagined James constantly inundated by the foul odor.

  The warder led them up a narrow stone staircase to the topmost room, then jerked his head toward the solid oak door.

  “He’s in there.”

  “Then open the door.”

  “Not so fast, my fine lady! There be rules.”

  “What rules?” Thea demanded indignantly. “Nothing was said of rules when this meeting was arranged.”

  The turnkey’s small black eyes glittered in the light of the lamp. “Just the same, there’s rules. You’ve ten minutes. No more. Then I lead you out of here. I’m taking enough chances without you wasting time.” He pointed down the stairs, to the remaining cells. “See down there? Them cells ain’t being used.” Jerking his head in the direction of the upper cell, he concluded, “So I ain’t got no excuse for being here if we’re caught. See?”

  “You have made your position clear,” Thea said curtly. At the same time she abandoned any hope of using this creature in an attempt to free James. The turnkey was terrified of being caught by his superiors, though he tried to disguise the emotion by threats of his own. She added contemptuously, “If time is so precious, why don’t you let us into the cell?”

  “Ho, lady! Not the two of you. The lassie here stays with me!”

  “She certainly does not!”

  “Then we turn about and just head back the way we came! If I’m caught here I can always say I brought the bonnie lassie to this wing to bed her, it’s so quiet like here.” At Thea’s gasp of disgust and the maid’s shrill protest, he shrugged. “No one will wonder. It’s a common enough price a wench pays to get in for a visit with her lover.”

  As her maid made an indignant sound in her throat, Thea glared at the turnkey. “If you are thinking of taking such a payment from my maid, then you may think again!” she informed him in a soft, albeit, dangerous voice. “If either of us is molested in any way, you will not be paid.”

  Feeling he had the upper hand, the warder leered, licking his thick lips. “Might be pay enough.”

  Icy fear clutched at Thea’s heart. While they were inside the Tolbooth, she and her maid were as much in this man’s control as the prisoners were, and just as helpless. Unless she could think of a way of outsmarting him, he would surely rape them both. There was no physical threat she could successfully use against him. What then would suffice?

  Money. Greed had caused him to agree to bring her here, conquering his terror of breaking the rules. Appeal to his greed, her racing thoughts told her. She prayed she had hit upon his main weakness.

  Forcing faint amusement into her voice, she said, “You consider a tumble with my maid to be worth fifty pounds?”

  The amount was probably more than the warder made in a year. The fellow dragged his gaze from the girl’s shapely figure, and Thea saw that avarice gleamed hotly in his eyes. “Fifty pounds. That’s what you said, lady. You remember it.”

  “You will be paid only if my maid and I leave this building unharmed. Now, unlock the door so we waste no more time arguing.”

  The guard grudgingly did as she ordered. Thea squeezed her maid’s hand in a gesture of support then slipped into the cell. The door slammed closed behind her.

  Inside, the tiny room was illuminated only by a thin shaft of light that penetrated through a slitted window set high in the wall. Through the gloom, Thea could see that the room was filthy. The walls were covered with a noisome sweat, the floors littered with foul-smelling straw. As she stood by the door, adjusting her eyes to the dim light, she heard a squeak and felt something scurry across her boot. Unintentionally she gasped, as she swallowed the scream she would normally have uttered.

  “What the devil do you want?” demanded her husband irritably. His voice emanated from one corner of the room. Cautiously, Thea stepped in that direction.

  “James?”

  There was a shuffling sound from his corner. “Thea? Is that you? You’ll have to come to me,” he said grimly.

  When she was close enough to see him, she halted abruptly and drew in her breath in a hiss of distress. James stood in the corner, his hands manacled together. A similar iron cuff bound one leg to a chain in the wall. “Oh, dear God!” she cried, her hands tightening on the basket she carried. “What have they done to you, my love!”

  A wry smile quirked his lips. “Colonel Harris is determined that I shall not escape. He visited me personally to tell me that the conspiracies that my friends on the outside were hatching would not work. Then he watched while the chains were put on. He seemed to enjoy the entertainment.”

  “When was that?” Thea whispered. She was desperately afraid that her visit here had been the cause of James’s discomfort.

  James looked toward the thin shaft of light and thought for a moment. “A few days ago, I suppose. It is rather hard to estimate the passage of time in this place. Apparently, Staverton had managed to find a ship that claimed to be willing to carry me to France. In a drunken evening the master talked a little too freely, and so Harris came to be informed of Staverton’s activities. A pity,” James added in a musing tone. “At this time I would find a voyage to France quite pleasant, even if I do not return.”

  “You would be an exile again.”

  “True, but it matters not.” He shrugged and raised his hands. “I am going nowhere now.” His expression hardened when Thea inadvertently lifted her hand to her cheek in distress. “Thea, what foolish whim has brought you here?”

  “Whim! James, this is no whim!”

  “No?” he retorted mockingly. “What else but a whim would bring a fine English lady such as you into this hellhole?”

  Love brought me, Thea thought unhappily. A desire to make you a little less unconformable. A mad scheme to help free you from this place.

  Her eyes filled with tears, blurring the sight of him. Yet his image was burned into her soul. His clothes were ragged. The fine linen shirt was encrusted with his blood and his creamy silk waistcoat was dirty and torn. His dark coat hung loosely on his tall frame, telling her that he had lost weight.

  The beginnings of a beard covered his cheeks, and he had discarded his wig. His short, dark hair was matted against his head, and his eyes burned with a fierce, angry fire. In appearance he was a far different man from the one she had lain with some two weeks before.

  She went over to his corner and held out the basket. “I am not a fine English lady, not anymore. I am the wife of a Scottish Highlander. I came to this place to bring you food and to see what kind of conditions you are being held in.”

  He hesitated a moment, then took the basket with a nod.

  “I admit that the food will not come amiss. The swill they feed me here is not even fit for the pigs.”

  Thea made a tutting sound. “I thought you looked awfully thin. I have been sending baskets like this one ever since you were put in this awful place. I suppose none has ever gotten to you.”

  “Not one,” James said around a mouthful of fresh bread. He closed his eyes and sighed. “Thank you, Thea, for this little taste of heaven.”

  She smiled tremulously. The sight of him so moved by a mouthful of bread brought his plight clearly to the fore. “It isn’t much, James. I wish it were more.” She moved closer, reaching for him.

  “Don’t come too close, Thea,” he said quickly. “I’m verminous.”

  Looking ruefully down at the hem of her gown where it dragged on the dirty straw, she laughed. “I fear I shall have to burn my gown after I leave
this wretched place. I doubt I am immune from the problem.” She hesitated, then added softly, “So it does not matter how close I come.” She reached up to touch his bearded cheek. He flinched as if she had struck him, and jerked away. His chains rattled loudly in the quiet. Thea’s hand fell to her side.

  After a moment, he said roughly, “Thea, I wish you had not come.”

  “I had to,” she whispered.

  He dropped the loaf back into the basket, apparently having eaten his fill. Then he leaned back against the wet, noisome wall, a brooding expression on his face as he watched her. “Have you any news? For the most part, they tell me nothing in here. Oh, that is not quite true. Harris very kindly informed me that Williams still lingers, but is not expected to last.”

  “Well, Colonel Harris lied to you! The surgeon announced days ago that the lieutenant is recovering rapidly. He will not die from his wound and Colonel Harris knows it!”

  “Well, that’s something,” James remarked calmly, apparently not much caring.

  His apathy cut Thea to her core. He could not have stated his disillusionment more clearly in words “James, do not give up hope! Your father and Mr. Ramsey have been working hard to convince the civil authorities that your incarceration here is wrong.”

  “But they have not succeeded, have they, Thea?”

  She shook her head wordlessly. She could hear the bitterness in his voice, and she knew she had no means of countering it.

  “No, and they will not as long as the Pretender cannot be found,” James went on. “Oh, heads will be shaken and sympathy will be given, but it is in no one’s interest to free me, dangerous rebel that I am. They’ll hang me if the Pretender turns up in the Highlands, and if he appears safe and away in Europe, they’ll transport me to one of the colonies as they did to so many after Culloden. I’ll be used as an example to any man who might consider following the Stuarts again.”

  “I don’t believe that will be your fate, James.”